Reviews for The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints

Look I have been out of work and the church has been helping me by paying some of my bills and providing food for us. I also get to help out by serving in the Bishop Store House, which this helps me feel good. I am helping back not just taking. I have also seen many other people have been benefited by it. Just go to the Humanitarian Center. The Church has been there in many other places....they don't just help members they help other people. They have provided medical services where none has been...they helped out Germany with wheat after WWII or I....many pounds of wheat was sent on train carts. They also have Family Services to help out with counseling (these are licensed counselors) .

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Bill Gates has done more for education with his donations to the UNCF than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ever will. And when Lakota people were dying in the Dakotas for lack of propane this past winter, the church was spending money to build condominiums in Philadelphia. The Maya children of Guatemala suffer malnourishment as high as 80%. What did the LDS church do? It built a multibillion dollar mall in Salt Lake City for the wealthy to shop in. Think about how much of a difference that money would have made in helping the Maya peoples instead of a shopping center in Utah. Other nonprofits do far more to help make the world better.

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I worked for over15 years in South Asia and East Asia with various government agencies and NGOs and I have always been impressed by the LDS Church's charitable relief efforts. When disaster strikes, they are among first ones in - and they come with appropriate aid.

For example, we watched as container after container of LDS aid arrived in Indonesia after the big 2004 tsunami, and again after a big earthquake in a different part of the country the next year. We were in China following the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan and again the LDS were busily bringing in supplies. I can't remember a typhoon in the Philippines in the last 10 years where I haven't run into LDS relief efforts.

I was discussing the LDS with some of my classmates who work in the US and they tell me they regularly see hundreds of LDS volunteers (sometimes called Mormons) in yellow vests working in the aftermath of disasters in the US like hurricanes Sandy and Katrina.

One of the things that impresses me most about the LDS church's relief efforts is their attitude. They don't try to limit their aid to their own adherents, they are willing to help where help is needed, regardless of religion. It doesn't even matter to them whether they get "credit" for their efforts - only that the aid gets to those in need.
For example, in Pakistan after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake there were problems with local officials who were very opposed to their people finding out that relief supplies were coming from Christians (to the point that the officials were blocking shipments to starving people), so the LDS simply had their supplies repacked to remove any mention of the church so they could get through. One LDS leader told me "It's only important that the hungry are fed and the homeless are sheltered, not that we get our names in the papers". I heard a similar story from a colleague that the LDS have been quietly shipping food to North Koreans on the same "no name" basis - politics don't matter, only hungry children matter.

I saw criticism of the LDS church several years ago for a "lack of transparency" (echoed in some other reviews on this site) and I did some research of my own.
Apparently the LDS church doesn't file the same financial disclosure documents with the US IRS that big US charities do (like Red Cross), but I learned that most US churches aren't required to file them and therefore don't file either. I also learned that the LDS church has a modern internal audit department and that one of the major public accounting firms (currently Deloitte) audits the church and its internal processes and auditors.

I looked into the governing board overseeing LDS charities and it is quite impressive (and a bit eclectic, which I like), including a Stanford business school professor, several university presidents, a state supreme court judge, and even the former chief pilot of Lufthansa, All serve as unpaid volunteers.

LDS charities distribute 100% of funds donated for relief. An LDS church leader told me that their charitable relief funds are separated from the church's other funds (like their tithing program) by a one-way gate. The church can use other funds to support relief efforts (like paying for all the overhead of the relief program), but no relief funds can be used for anything other than relief aid.

Given what I have seen and experienced personally and what I have learned about them, I would be very comfortable recommending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a worthy charity.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

When my husband lost his job and we were struggling financially for several months the LDS church offered to help us by sending us to a place called the bishop's storehouse to receive food. When we arrived I was surprised to find dozens of families like ourselves filling their shopping carts with food and necessities. I have since learned that the LDS church offers this all across the world and they do so through their members donations and investments in cattle ranches and such. We receive meats, dairy, and canned goods during the time my husband was un-employed. Everytime we visited the store house it was full of people receiving help. I'm thankful for the help we received in a time of stress and need. Thank you to all who make this charity possible.

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Interesting set of reviews. Either ex-members rate the Church with one star (anonymously) or Church members and other active donors rate it highly.

I spent 18 months as a senior missionary and was intimately involved in administering Church funds. I am thrilled to say that the donations go to the needed recipients and every effort is made that donations are both sustainable and that there is no graft or corruption. I gladly donate to the Church.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

Spent more than 25 years as a voluntary member of this organization. After I left (voluntarily), I was shunned by members of this organization. I was told that I was not good enough for them and many of them cut off contact with me due to the teachings of this organization.

This organization also took thousands of dollars from me with the promise of my life getting better, but like many organizations who claim this, it didn't happen. It is also a very homophobic and misogynist organization which routinely gets involved with politics (gay marriage) and I believe that it's tax-exempt status should be revoked because of that.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

I have donated thousands of dollars to and spent two years as a volunteer missionary for the Mormon church. Unfortunately, those two years in a third world country were spent almost exclusively recruiting new members for the organization and doing very little substantive service for the poor people around me. I loved the experiences I had there, but I very much wish the Church would train its missionaries to be less like salesmen. The Church is guarded about its financial practices. It is estimated that it has a net worth of at least $40 billion, with annual revenue of $8 billion (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money#p1). Members of the church are told that payment of tithing (10% of income) is a requirement for admission to heaven, and they will be denied access to Mormon temples if they fail to pay. Growing up I was led to believe that the Church spends millions of dollars each year on humanitarian aid projects around the globe, but these figures are never made public, a fact I now find disturbing. This is especially troubling because the Church recently funded the building of an enormous shopping mall in Salt Lake City (at least $2 billion). The Church owns 928,000 acres of land in North America, is the largest ranch land owner in Wyoming, is the 2nd largest land owner in Nebraska, has the largest cattle ranch in 48 states (adjacent to Disneyworld in Florida), is the largest foreign landowner in UK. The LDS Church owns several businesses, numerous radio and television stations, its own insurance company, and is rumored to be the largest single producer of commercial beef in the USA . They own enormous properties in Hawaii including a Marriott hotel franchise and the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is the most visited tourist attraction in Hawaii (http://mormonthink.com/tithing.htm). As an organization claiming it is God's "one true church," these business enterprises and lack of financial transparency are disconcerting to say the least. This is all important information people should consider before donating their, time, money, or any other resources to this organization.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

I think it's so wonderful that the LDS Church is usually the first organization to arrive at the scene of a disaster, sometimes even before the Red Cross gets there. We learn to "serve one another" from the scriptures and so volunteering is serving. Members can either volunteer and help at disasters or can help by donating to the Humanitarian aid on an Offerings slip at church. I haven't been able to volunteer at a disaster, but have helped by donating. The church helps people throughout the world, not just the U.S.

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or "LDS" or "Mormon" for short, is run completely by non-paid clergy, including those at the highest point of leadership (They are compensated for travel and other church related expenses if they are unable to pay with their own funds). ALL the non-paid clergy to the highest level continue paying tithing voluntarily as well. The biggest expenses of the Church are building chapels and temples world-wide including upkeep and maintenance, and maintaining missions throughout the world. Members when paying tithing, which money is used for these and related eccesiastical matters, also have options to donate additional moneys for disasters, humanitarian aid, education scholarships for less developed countries, etc., and contrary to the norm, all the money goes to help since church volunteers are paid nothing to do so. It is due to lack of understanding that some write negatively about the money controlled by the church, since they do not know the facts - that help given to disasters, etc. is directly donated by members voluntarily for that express purpose, and is distributed by the church free of overhead. I prefer donating this way since I know that every penny I give will go to help those in need.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

It is reassuring that the church gives out 100% of its humanitarian aid contributions, which is very uncommon in so many charities today. The church often stays for extended periods helping in areas that have had natural disasters, long after other relief agencies have left the scene. The Church specializes in small items that are often overlooked by larger agencies such as hygiene kits. The LDS Church also has an extensive welfare system which is separate from its humanitarian aid program. This program is primarily for the relief of its members and is administered on a local level. Members of the church fast each month and donate the money they would have used on meals to assist the poor. This program should not be confused with humanitarian aid. To learn more about the LDS Church's humanitarian aid program visit www.mormon.org/humanitarian-aid